


A Tear in the Heart

by Han502653



Series: Heart of the Matter [2]
Category: Assassination Classroom
Genre: AU, F/M, Happy Ending, Pre-Relationship, but not the same universe, spiritual sequel to shot through the heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 21:00:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20014714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Han502653/pseuds/Han502653
Summary: As the Reaper fights Korosensei, and Yanagisawa flicks Karasuma away, they pay no mind to Irina. Irina takes that chance. It will be the death of her but it only makes sense.One twisted adult for twenty eights wonderful, amazing kids. There isn’t a better deal.





	A Tear in the Heart

**Author's Note:**

> So I came up with this idea while I was writing Point of View, and so I reused a bit of the writing there but with a twist. It's also something of a spiritual sequel to Shot Through the Heart do to the similarities it has as you will see. I hope you enjoy!

“Karasuma!”

Irina ran to him. She didn’t have much else she could do. The fight just beside them thundered with boom after boom. The children’s shouts of fear and worry over their quickly fading teacher. Hysterical laughter from that asshole—and there was _nothing_ she could do…

She turned Karasuma over. He groaned—he was still alive at least—but didn’t quite manage to open his eyes. Her hand found his head—wincing as she found some blood—and she cradled it without thinking—the fear swirling in her stomach making her nauseous and numb.

She darted her eyes back to the battle. Yanagisawa was ignoring them—she had never grabbed his attention so she wasn’t surprised. Everything she had ever heard about him made him out to be one to underestimate women anyway.

Her grip on her gun tightened and she cursed herself.

She’d made the wrong choice—when she’d changed her ammo. Crouching over Karasuma as protectively as she could she scrambled to change it again as the fighting continued with the kids _far_ to close and the Octopus taking _far_ too much damage.

Maybe while they were distracted—while their arrogance made them think she was not a threat—she could get a shot in.

She wouldn’t be an idiot like Karasuma—she wouldn’t announce her shot.

One shot… which would do almost nothing and get her killed—but if the Octopus could take advantage of that minute distraction to aim to kill…

She _had_ to try—she had to try and save those kids.

One twisted adult for twenty eight wonderful, _amazing_ kids—it was a no brainer.

She just needed to move—she couldn’t get Karasuma killed with her… she just… _couldn’t._

So she did.

Karasuma knew what she was planning to do just before she did it but too late to stop her.

He tried—oh, he tried, but his vision was double and his arms slow as he reached out for her ankle, hands grasping only air.

Adrenalin spiked and with it he managed to push himself up to his arms in time to watch Irina take careful aim. He was almost to his knees when she shot, and before he could get any further…

A sonic bomb heralded her death. Blood and hair went flying as she was speared through the chest. She was lifted high in the air and then thrown like a ragdoll into the ground mere feet to him. She laid still.

Later he doesn’t remember how he got to his feet, or when his double vision returned to normal. He doesn’t remember how he got to her either. He doesn’t remember until she’s in his arms, her face pale, her eyes open and the determined look only slowly relaxing.

He’d be told later that Korosensei had taken Irina’s miniscule distraction and aimed to kill. He would learn later that Yanagisawa would try to flee only to be hunted down—unable to escape the barrier—trapped in his own trap.

All in all he loses less than a minute. Eventually he will be frustrated with himself—Angry even—for losing that amount of time. For falling into shock despite the concussion and despite the gruesome murder that happened in front of him. He was in charge of protecting those students and…

And instead ultimately Irina had paid the price in his stead.

At the moment he is just stunned.

“Bitch-sensei…” a voice says mournfully and finally he fully snaps from it, looking up and around to see they are surrounded. The students stare in utter horror down at the mess in his arms.

“Is she… is she dead?” Kurahashi asks weakly, hands grasped tightly in front of her. Tears already falling down her cheeks.

Karasuma closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. He doesn’t even had to check for a pulse, Irina’s chest is open, the place where her heart and the majority of her lungs is just gone. Her ribs, her spine, shattered, chunks of it missing.

“She—”

“Lift her up—keep her from the ground.”

Karasuma blinked and then looked up to the Octopus, who was looming above them, his face serious despite how he slowly swayed from the effort.

“What are you—”

“We don’t have much time—I was focused on the students so I wasn’t able to grab everything.” Something lowered from the sky, a small orb colored a dark murky maroon.

“What is that?” Fuwa asked weakly.

“I managed to pick up some of Irina-sensei’s blood and cells before they hit the ground and then stored them in a ball of clean air,” he explained. “I wasn’t able to get all of them, but with luck…” He trailed off and Karasuma could only watch in shock as tiny strings weaved around his arms and into Irina.

“Student’s keep in mind that time cannot be turned back—and your teacher… he had made many grave errors in the past.” He said as he worked. “However it’s possible to learn from your past—to avoid making the same mistakes over and over again. I’ve been working on this all year—speed, precision, so that if a calamity happened like that again I could do something.”

His grin didn’t fade, but his voice went frustrated. “I wasn’t able to recover all of her cells—and other are damaged beyond repair. In their place, when the holes are small enough, I’m leaving placeholders of my slime. Her body should be able to replace them in short order. In other places the damage is more severe. She’ll have to go to the hospital after this but—” Between two of his “fingers” sparks flashed and he placed it across her chest. She arched out of his arms as the shock went through her.

A single cough, a breath—little more than that but… but she was _alive!_

“I got her heart beating again but she’s lost a lot of blood, I’ll appreciate some help from those of you with AB blood.” He continued, tentacles darting out and pinching into several of the students. Another was inserted into her elbow.

She stirred. An eyelid moved, and then another. A slight groan and then finally a glimpse of blue iris.

Karasuma’s heart pounded in his ears as he tried to comprehend what had just happened. Someone who was more than dead was now breathing on his lap. Her eyes blinking up slowly at him.

“Bitch-sensei!”

“Bitch-sensei your alive!”

“Bitch-sensei!”

She furrowed her brows. “B-brats?”

“It’s good to see you awake,” the Octopus said proudly.

“Octo-pus,” Irina mumbled eyes hazy and unfocused.

“How do you feel?” Karasuma finally asked, finding his voice. “Do you remember what happened?”

Her gaze slowly traveled to his. She blinked.

“I…I…shot…?”

“Close enough,” he sighed, heart still pumping from adrenalin and relief.

“Don’t worry,” The Octopus said cheerfully even as he collapsed to the ground. “I put some extra focus in making sure you don’t scar.”

She blinked again. “Oh… good.”

“Thank you, Irina, for saving my students,” The Octopus continued, a “finger” gently tapping her on the head.

She huffed slightly, leaning heavily into Karasuma’s chest, eyes fluttering closed. “Idiot… my… students… too…”

The Octopus chuckled.

Karasuma wasn’t sure if Irina made it before the Octo… _Korosensei_ passed or if she had passed out before hand—let alone if she had truly understood what was happening. Nonetheless by the time he was standing and ignoring his aching ribs she was out.

He herded the students away from what was left of Korosensei and into the school, never once setting Irina down until they were seated and reading. With Okuda and Takebayashi help he quickly spread out a clean cloth in the entranceway and made her as comfortable as he could with just a spare jacket under her head.

The beacon had gone off—soon the forward team would be coming up to assure it had worked. He would send Irina down with them.

A part of him wanted to go with her—but he had the students to take care of. He couldn’t leave them. And after what she did—he rather thought she’d be pissed if he _hadn’t_ stayed with them. So he watched as the two soldiers carried her down the mountain in a stretcher until the medic checking his head made him turn to him to check his eyes.

As soon as he could he would call Sokokawa and asked her to meet Irina at the military hospital. Just in case. They seemed to like each other

The hospital was quiet. There wasn’t even a heart monitor—or rather there was but it only alarmed when necessary. Footsteps and muffled voices traveled through the hall from time to time but it was late and things were quiet.

It had been two days, nearly three now.

And it was the first time he had been able to visit.

He would have liked to have come before but taking care of the students came first. Irina would more than understand. He’d had his team visit occasionally to gather updates to her health and keep an eye on her. She was famous as far as hitmen went, and she was in a very vulnerable position. Best to not take any chances.

He still felt odd anyway.

Apparently she had awoken a few times, but only briefly, and not enough to be particularly aware before she had fallen back asleep. He was concerned but the nurse told him she was doing alright. Her… Injuries were odd, pretty much unique thanks to the miraculous but unfinished healing the Octopus had done. Her ribs were still cracked, the tissue of her organs thin—she was extremely bruised from internal bleeding and had only just avoided surgery.

She’d been on a ventilator for six hours due to the weakness of her lungs and heart leading to poor blood oxygen levels, and then they weaned her of it over the course of the next few hours. Since then she had been breathing on her own, if with a full mask respirator and was growing stronger by the day.

The biggest concern was her mental health. She had been as good as dead if only for a short time. Oxygen hadn’t been able to reach her brain. Until she was fully awake they couldn’t rule out any brain damage.

Karasuma could only hope the brief moment of consciousness after she was saved meant she hadn’t.

He shifted in the uncomfortable seat. Irina was in her own room—her status alone made for that, but the chairs were just as uncomfortable as anywhere else. His ribs ached as he moved—he’d broken two with his hit, but they were healing slowly and his concussion was already gone.

 _He_ was fine.

He glanced around the dim room, at cards and pictures, and a stuffed cat placed to the side. No flowers—but he wasn’t surprised by that. He doubted a single student hadn’t visited in the last twenty-four hours, and few had come without some kind of token of appreciation.

He turned back to Irina and her sleeping face—calm and relaxed. Quite different than how it had been that day.

He could still remember, the moment before that monster struck, Irina face hard and determined and entirely sure of her actions, entirely aware of her fate—her gun steady in her hands and her shoulder set in the most perfect shooting position he’d ever seen from her.

He suspected she had never been more sure of herself than she had in that moment.

Irina had already shown her acceptance of death. She seemed to see it as nothing more than an inevitability. Maybe it was.

Some team leaders would love to have an agent like that on their team—unafraid of death, willing to go that last bit to get a job done.

Karasuma could mostly feel the stress of the years to come. He would have to have a talk with her.

Since apparently his comment before hadn’t stuck—about how necessary she was to this world they had found themselves in. Even now—with the school year over… the student’s _needed_ her.

And he well… he wasn’t sure how to parse his feelings.

He couldn’t fault her per say—she had given her life for the wellbeing of the students, and miraculously had been given a second chance. Still though… part of his wished he had managed to grab her, even if he had no second option to take.

Who knew if Korosensei would have been able to stop them with Irina’s help?

It was a selfish thought really—and one that had no real use anymore. Like Korosensei had said, one can’t rewind time.

But they can learn from it.

And he was still trying to figure out what he should learn from this.

A groan distracted his thoughts.

She didn’t awake suddenly—or at least she didn’t start. After her groan she went still—and at first he thought she had slipped back into sleep—but no.

She was awake—awake enough to fear where she was.

“Irina?”

A slightest of tensions, and then an ease of them. She blinked open her eyes as he stood.

“Kara…suma?”

“Yes. I’ll get the nurses.”

“T-the brats?” she asked once the nurses were done and he’d been allowed back in. Her eyes were lidded but attentive. Her respirator had been pulled off and she was carefully taking small sips of some water. She was truly awake.

“All fine—as much as they can be with Korosensei passed at least,” he told her. She didn’t even blink at his use of the targets name, though she did look down.

“Oh… I wasn’t sure if that had been a dream,” she said softly, looking sad.

“Honestly, they are taking it better than I had expected,” he continued. “There is laughter at times, smiles.”

“Good,” she said quietly. “Can you… can you tell me what happened?”

He explained—from her getting stabbed to Korosensei’s death to her coming to the hospital and the state of her injuries. She heard of the student’s graduation and decisions with the prize money.

“They have decided you counted as being part of the mission,” he told her and she made a face, disagreeing he was sure. He couldn’t help an amused smile. “So you get the same cut, plus your medical expenses taken cared of.”

She sighed with an eye roll but didn’t say anything. At least not for now.

Personally he was a bit unhappy with the second decisions, as it had freed the Ministry of Defense from having to pay for the costs themselves—and he couldn’t help but feel they should. Yanagisawa had been _their_ monster ultimately.

But that would have been a fight—and perhaps it was one better avoided.

Karasuma yawned, unable to help himself. Irina huffed a painful laugh.

“You should go,” she said. “It’s past midnight and we both know you have work tomorrow.” She eyed his chest. “And that you’re hurt.”

He hadn’t confirmed any of that in his retellings but he wasn’t surprised she knew anyway. That she remembered.

“Alright, I will see you again later,” he told her standing up stiffly. He’d leave his talk for when both of them were feeling better. He paused, once again looking around the room at the many knickknacks and tokens of affection and love.

“Sorry I didn’t bring you anything,” he admitted. He’d come right from work—it already being past normal business hours, he was only allowed here because of his status. There hadn’t been time nor had he really thought of it.

Irina simply smiled as she replaced her respirator, eyes closing tiredly, and shook her head.

“Goodbye.”

“Goodbye.”

He would bring something next time. Perhaps those chocolates she had always eaten in the staff room. She would like that.

He was sure of it.


End file.
